


humility

by castelia



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s07e13 Knightfall, Gen, what if hook didn't duel ahab?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:20:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29141400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/castelia/pseuds/castelia
Summary: “I can help you,” says the demon he spent centuries trying to kill. “If you let me.”That’s not even the strangest thing about this whole situation.The strangest thing is, Killian believes him.
Relationships: Wishverse Captain Hook | Detective Rogers & Alice Jones | Tilly, Wishverse Captain Hook | Detective Rogers & Wishverse Rumplestiltskin
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	humility

“I can help you,” says the demon he spent centuries trying to kill. “If you let me.”

That’s not even the strangest thing about this whole situation.

The strangest thing is, Killian believes him.

As a pirate, he thought he would be free of his past as both an indentured servant and a naive naval officer. As a father, he thought he would be free of the desire to exact vengeance on those who wronged him.

Pride has been his sin many times before.

_You can’t even save your own daughter without the Dark One’s help._

“I’ll rip his face of, take his other leg, no one need know it’s me! Otherwise you are going to lose _everything_ ,” pleads Rumplestiltskin.

“I think he means _he’s_ going to lose everything,” says Ahab, a pirate captain smug with youth and sharp with revenge. Someone Killian used to be rather like.

But there is a little girl, beautiful and wholly his, waiting for him to come home.

But there is a desperate glint in Rumplestiltskin’s eyes, one that has nothing to do with escaping his prison.

Milah had a sweet, reckless laugh, and it might have been his favorite thing about her.

The first time Baelfire let out that same sound during sword practise, a gaping wound that had been festering stopped aching, just for a moment. Rain pattered away in the ocean around them when Bae told him, in more vivid detail, what exactly transpired between him and his father.

Rumplestiltskin is not talking about escaping, at least not fully. He is speaking from experience, one father to another.

It makes Killian’s gut roil.

_No_ , he wants to shout at the crocodile. He wants to put Ahab in his place, wants to prove that youth and revenge don’t mean anything because he is still every inch the ruthless pirate and he can bloody well prove it to this smug bastard.

Instead, Killian picks up the fishing hook from the ground.

He _refuses_ to have anything in common with Rumplestiltskin. Especially when it comes to fatherhood. He will not risk Alice.

In fact, as soon as the thought occurs to him, that he really was about to drop everything, drop Alice’s freedom, for a duel with someone so insignificant—shame floods through him.

“You wouldn’t,” Ahab sneers.

Captain Hook lifts a single, challenging eyebrow before setting the crocodile free.


End file.
